Morris Bishop, Smurf-Killer

I confess I’m not really a fan of the limerick. Though I’ve been praised for my affinity for writing tightly-structured poetry (okay, once, by a kind of out-there creative writing instructor at the University of Idaho) limericks are just a bit too limiting in their form for the kind of things I enjoy writing.

So I leave limericks to the professionals. Like Morris Bishop. Here’s a sample, which Louis Untermeyer obviously included in “The Treasury of Laughter”:

A ghoulish old fellow from Kent
Encrusted his wife in cement;
He said, with a sneer:
“I was careful, my dear,
To follow your natural bent.”

Not exactly my cup of tea, form-wise, but I won’t say I disapprove of the content. Untermeyer says Bishop is not “an originator” of light verse as is Ogden Nash, but “knows how to surprise the reader with a combination of round humor and barbed nonsense.”

Which makes me why Untermeyer didn’t include Bishop’s “How to Treat Elves” if he likes that round humor and surprise:

I met an elf man in the woods,
The wee-est little elf!
Sitting under a mushroom tall--
'Twas taller than himself!

"How do you do, little elf," I said,
"And what do you do all day?"
"I dance 'n fwolic about," said he,
"'N scuttle about and play;"

"I s'prise the butterflies, 'n when
A katydid I see,
'Katy didn't' I say, and he
Says 'Katy did!' to me!

"I hide behind my mushroom stalk
When Mister Mole comes froo,
'N only jus' to fwighten him
I jump out'n say 'Boo!'

"'N then I swing on a cobweb swing
Up in the air so high,
'N the cwickets chirp to hear me sing
'Upsy-daisy-die!'

"'N then I play with the baby chicks,
I call them, chick chick chick!
'N what do you think of that?" said he.
I said, "It makes me sick.

"It gives me sharp and shooting pains
To listen to such drool."
I lifted up my foot, and squashed
The God damn little fool.

Ah-hah. Not so nice. But there is that nice surprise Untermeyer promised. Somehow, I think he and Elmer Fudd would get along just fine.

Josh Billings and his, uh, Tripes

It’s every writer’s dream to be remembered.

Actually, it’s every writer’s dream to be followed by billowing clouds of cash blown out of his or her pockets wherever they go, but being remembered for something written down is second best.

That brings us to Josh Billings, the nom de plume of Henry Wheeler Shaw, pictured at left.

Shaw as Billings was one of the first popular "crackerbarrel" philosophers, who brought folk comedy, philosophy and spelling to the fore of American popular culture. Aside from Mark Twain, Billings was the most popular author in America in the 19th century.

Thing is, you've heard things Josh Billings said, but you don't recognize them as his. First of all, that line -- "In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy... to wit the wag of a dog's tail," was featured in Disney's "Lady and the Tramp."But infinitely more famous is this little four-liner:

I hate to be a kicker,
I always long for peace,
But the wheel that does the squeaking,
Is the one that gets the grease.

Yep, every time you say "It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease," you're paraphrasing Josh Billings.

For "The Treasury of Laughter," Untermeyer chose two pieces, the first of which we'll discuss here. It's called "The Mule." Behold:

The mule is haf hoss, and haf Jackass, and then kums to a full stop, natur diskovering her mistake. Tha weigh more, akordin tu their heft, than enny other kreetur, except a crowbar. Tha kant hear anny quicker, nor further than the hoss, yet their ears are big enuff for snow shoes. You kan trust them with enny one whose life aint worth enny more than the mules. The only wa tu keep them into a paster, is tu turn them into a medder jineing, and let them jump out. Tha are reddy for us, just as soon as they will du tu abuse. Tha haint got enny friends, and will live on huckel berry brush, with an ockasional chanse at Kanada thissels. Tha are a modern invenshun, i dont think the Bible deludes tu them at tall. Tha sel for more money than enny other domestik animile. Yu kant tell their age by looking into their mouth, enny more than you could a Mexican cannons.

And it goes on like this.

Tha are the strongest creeturs on earth, and heaviest, ackording tu their size; i her tell ov one who fell oph from the tow path, on the Eri kanawl, and sunk as soon as he touched bottom, but he kept rite on towing the boat tu the nex stachun, breathing thru his ears, which stuck out ov the water about 2 feet six inches; i didn't see this did, but an auctioneer told me ov it, and i never knew an auctioneer tu lie unless it was absolutely convenient.

Music to the ears of Henry Higgins, I'm sure. We kind of hear echoes of Billings in the twang and slang written by contemporary Mark Twain and in any string of radio comics, from the Old Timer on Fibber McGee and Molly to Amos 'n' Andy's Silverfish. This kind of folksy hokum is pretty much extinct today, being heard only in whispers of Rancid Crabtree in Pat McManus' delightful reminisces. Garrison Kellior is too progressive and urbane for this kind of tomfoolery, fortunately enough for us. He's ugly enough without this kind of misdirected language coming out of his puss.

Billings' death was ignominious, but remembered. Per Wikipedia:

Billings' death is described in Chapter 12 of John Steinbeck's fictional Cannery Row. According to Steinbeck's homage, Billings died in the the Hotel del Monte in Monterey after which his body was delivered for burial preparation by the local constable to the town's only doctor, who also doubled as an amateur mortician. The doctor, per his usual embalming protocol, dispensed of Billings' entrails by tossing them into the gulch behind his house before packing the torso with sawdust. The stomach, liver and intestines were found in the gulch the following morning by a dog whose master, a small boy, intended on using them for fish bait. Some local men, realizing the disgrace this could bring to Monterey -- a town proud of its literary heritage -- were able to stop the boy as he was preparing to row out to sea, retrieved the "tripas" and forced the doctor to give Billings' organs a proper burial befitting a great author.

Sally Benson Curing What Ails Us

Poet Ogden Nash has a poem called “The Adventures of Isabel,” in which Isabel, the pluckiest of little girls, encounters a doctor:


Isabel met a troublesome doctor,
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.
The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills
And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.
The doctor said unto Isabel,
Swallow this, it will make you well.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.

On the surface, this might be what Sally Benson’s “Between Madison and Park” is all about – a patient curing a doctor. But there are vagaries and subtleties throughout the short piece that Louis Untermeyer included in this anthology while tongue-in-cheek calling the author “witty and penetrating,” words many a reviewer has used to describe Sally Benson.

I’m just not sure what they are.

Maybe exploring her other works will help. Benson wrote the book on which the musical “Meet me in St. Louis” is based. The story focuses on the travails of a family facing an impending move from St. Louis to New York on the eve of 1904’s Louisiana Purchase Exposition World’s Fair. But, like Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, the story’s underlying tension is that of women trying to assert themselves and live their lives as they want to live them.

Oh, and two very popular songs, neither of which Sally Benson has anything to do with:

So let us examine a passage from “Between Madison and Park.” Here, our protagonist meets Dr. Mitchell, to whom she has been referred by a friend because she awoke that morning with a choking sensation that, oddly, didn’t seem to upset her husband all that much:

Well, Dr. Mitchell, first I want you to understand that I am not a woman who thinks she has something the batter with her when she hasn’t and keeps running to doctors all the time.”

He laughed pleasantly. “You don’t have to tell me that,” he said. “I can see that you’re not.”

“You’ll jut have to take my word for it that I’m not,” Mrs. Gibson said. “it’s just that – well, when I woke up this morning I felt funny. I felt as though I were choking. I mean I don’t feel sick at all. I just have this choking sensation.”

Dr. Mitchell closed his eyes.

Mrs. Gibson saw that there was a bust of Shakespeare in the center of the bookshelves that ran across the side of the room to the right of the Doctor’s desk. “Oh!’ she cried, “Isn’t that the funniest thing! You know, when I came in I was almost sure I’d seen you before, and I guess I was simply thinking of Shakespeare. I mean you would look almost exactly like Shakespeare if you wore a beard.”

He opened his eyes. “Not that’s very odd,” he said. “So many of my patients have told me the same thing. Personally, I don’t see the resemblance. But I suppose one never does see one’s own self.” He leaned forward and look at her steadily. “About this choking sensation which you have . . .”

Mrs. Gibson laughed nervously. “I suppose I imagine it, really.”

“But aren’t the things we imagine real to us?” Dr Mitchell asked softly.

“I daresay they are,” Mrs. Gibson said. “At least, I see what you mean. If I thought I were Napoleon, I would really think I was Napoleon.”

Then, after a few more diagnostic and personal questions. Mrs. Gibson goes on to give Dr. Mitchell hope that his dreamer namesake sixteen-year-old son who wants to be a writer will turn out just fine, though he only wants to study what he wants to study.

Maybe if you didn’t send him to school and let him go to work for a while,” Mrs. Gibson suggested.

Dr Mitchell breathed in deeply. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “I’ll talk it over with Mrs. Mitchell.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “That might be the solution,” he said. He opened his eyes and smiled at Mrs. Gibson and she smiled back. “Now, that choking sensation,” he said. He took out a prescription blank from the drawer of his desk, wrote hurriedly on it, and handed it to her. The prescription was written in Latin, but at the bottom of the blank were two words in English. “For tension,” they read.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Gibson said. She arose to go and they shook hands. “I hope your boy will be all right. I’m sure he will. After all, you must realize he’s only sixteen.”

“I’d like to see you again in about a week,” Dr. Mitchell said. “And we’ll see if that choking sensation hasn’t cleared up. It may be a form of claustrophobia, or it may be that you are overtired and your nerves are playing tricks. Will you stop and make an appointment with Miss Devers, my nurse?”

“Yes, I will,” Mrs. Gibson said. “Good-bye.”

So, I can hear Untermeyer chuckling. Just who cured who?

Hurdy-Gurdy

A hurdy-gurdy. You'd think after watching The Polar Express with my kids a hundred times, I'd remember what one is. But this now puts Robert Benchley's comment in perspective, doesn't it?

Robert Benchley and the Hurdy-Gurdy

Now, I like me a bit of nonsense. Read any of my blogs, and you’ll see that. But I tend to be picky in my nonsense. Whenever I hear or read someone talking of “Nonsense for nonsense’s sake,” I say “Nonsense.” Nonsense is entirely subjective and varies from person to person, indeed, from mood to mood.

So, to test your affectation for Robert Benchley’s nonsense for nonsense’s sake, as Untermeyer puts it, first watch this:

Consider now that, in 1936, Benchley won an Academy Award for this ten-minute, uh, soporific. When I watched it earlier this week, early in the am, it was amusing. Gut-wrenching laughter? No. I did like the look on the cartoon alcoholic’s face, however.

But wait a second. It’s getting better. “A sleep position most popular with the drunk.” Wait a second. Wait a second. This reminds me of something. There:

This, from 1953. Everyone’s much more familiar with Goofy Geef’s “How to Sleep,” though it does seem ripped off from Benchley’s. Or inspired. Re-imagined, as they might say today. (And this ‘they” is not just Disney; it’s everybody.)

So to the Robert Benchley in The Treasury of Laughter: Kiddie-Kar Travel.

For the uninitiated, I should say that planes used to be called trains. Trains, too, used to whisk people along their merry way on long, cross-country voyages with all the comfort of one of those livestock trailers you see rattling down the highway with poop falling out of them. Just like in the cattle cars, it was important on the trains to get an upper berth – meaning first class – to avoid the inevitable downhill flow of the various waste products trains naturally accumulate.

One of those waste products, Benchley proposes, is children. So basically take your worst traveling on a plane full of kids nightmare and substitute “train” for “plane,” and you’ll get the picture:

If the child is of an age which denies the existence of sleep, however, preferring to run up and down the aisle of the car rather than sit in its chair (at least a baby can’t get out of its chair unless it falls out and even then it can’t go far), then every minute of the trip is full of fun. On the whole, having traveled with children of all the popular ages, I would be inclined to award the Hair-Shirt to the man who successfully completes the ride with a boy of, let us say, three.

In the first place, you start with the pronounced ill-will of two-thirds of the rest of the occupants of the car. You see them as they come in before the train starts, glancing at you and yours with little or no attempt to conceal the fact they wish they had waited for the four o’clock. Across from you is perhaps a large man who, in his home town, has a reputation for eating little children. He wears a heavy gold watch chain and wants to read through a lot of reports on the trip. He is just about as glad to be opposite a small boy as he would be if it were a hurdy-gurdy.

In back of you is a lady in a black silk dress who doesn’t like the porter. Ladies in black silk dresses always seem to board the train with an aversion to the porter. The fact that the porter has to be in the same car with her makes her fussy to start with, and when she discovers that in front of her is a child of three who is already eating (you simply have to give him a lemon-drop to keep him quiet at least until the train starts) she decides that the best thing to do is simply to ignore him and not give him the slightest encouragement to become friendly. The child therefore picks her out immediately to be his buddy.

So you see, Consumerist.com readers who hate children on planes, you’re in good, well-documented company, predisposed to despise child and parent no matter what happens.

And we see, folks, that Benchley is a pioneer in that erudite, almost clinical humor that uses the overblown speech of psychology and academia to document nonsense for nonsense’s sake. And, for that, I am grateful.

Interesting tidbids: Robert Benchley is one of the founding members of the Algonquin Round Table, and father to Peter Benchley, of Jaws fame.

Ludwig Bemelmans Goes for the Yuks

We’ve all got an uncle like this. The kind who tells the same tired joke each and every time you see him. Everyone has to laugh because, hey, somebody told a joke, and not to laugh would be the acme of rudeness.

Then again . . .

Maybe this setup is a little unfair to Ludwig Bemelmans, whom Louis Untermeyer describes as “a small continent of varied cultures.” He did, after all, create the beloved – at least by some – character “Madeline,” of the popular childrens’ books of the same name.

But the Bremelmans selection Untermeyer picked for his Treasury of Laughter is an echo of the bad joke-telling uncle. It is entitled “The Elephant Cutlet.”

The story carries a lot of currency, in fact, it was the subject of a letter to the editor of TIME magazine in 1950, among other cultural references.

Te story goes like this: Two men in Vienna open a restaurant named “Cutlets from Every Animal in the World,” and have as their first customer a “distinguished lady, a Countess,” who orders an Elephant Cutlet.

“How would Madame like this Elephant Cutlet cooked?” said the waiter.

“Oh, Milanaise, sauté in butter, with a little spaghetti over it, on that a filet of anchovy, and an olive on top,” she said.

[Editor’s note: I can feel my acid reflux bubbling up already.]

The waiter places the order, much to the chagrin of the restaurant’s owners, a dentist who bankrolled the restaurant but had doubts on the premise, and the chef, who comes through with a zinger:

The Chef said nothing. He put on a clean apron and walked into the dining room to the table of the Lady. There he bowed, bent down to her and said, “Madame has ordered an elephant Cutlet?”

“Yes,” said the Countess.

“With spaghetti and a filet of anchovy and an olive?”

“Yes.”

“Madame is all alone?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Madame expects no one else?”

“No.”

“And Madame wants only one culet?”

“Yes,” said the Lady, “but why all these questions?”

You already know what’s coming, but I’ll still give it to you smack between the eyes:

“Because,” said the Chef,” because, Madame, I am very sorry, but for one Cutlet we cannot cut up our Elephant.”

To that, all that can be said is this:

Hilaire Belloc Getting Gharsterly

I know it’s Edward Gorey who gets all the attention, the titters, the little hee-hees in the corners of the Internet. And that’s fine. I like me an occasional read of the Gashlycrumb Tinies just as much as the next guy.

But he wasn’t the first to find humor in the macabre. Or the first to poke fun at a strict, moralistic society, or at least the childrens’ books that society produced. Nor was Hilaire Belloc the first, either. But he’s damn entertaining. I'll hold Belloc's "A Bad Child's Book of Beasts" up against Gorey's Gashlycrumbs any time.

This is my favorite from his “A Moral Alphabet”:

E Stands for Egg

Moral:

The moral of this verse
Is applicable to the Young. Be terse.

And, yes, you Gorey fans, Belloc did get into the slightly gross. Behold:

Jim

Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo--
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.

You know--or at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so--
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurses in a Crowd;
Now this was Jim's especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able,
And on this inauspicious day
He slipped his hand and ran away!

He hadn't gone a yard when--Bang!
With open Jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The Boy: beginning at his feet.
Now, just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels,
And then by gradual degrees,
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,
Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.
No wonder Jim detested it!
No wonder that he shouted ``Hi!''

The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
``Ponto!'' he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion's name),
``Ponto!'' he cried, with angry Frown,
``Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!''
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.
But when he bent him over Jim,
The Honest Keeper's Eyes were dim.
The Lion having reached his Head,
The Miserable Boy was dead!

When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:--
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, ``Well--it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!''
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James's miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.

This brings me to Kenny Kynoch. Kenny was (and is, I suppose) a guy of whom I was vaguely aware in junior high school. He was a dramatist, one of those guys who always went off in a room by himself at the library to practice oratory and readings and such. Much like this:

I don’t know if he ever read a Hilaire Belloc poem, but it’s quite possible. YouTube is littered with such dramatic readings.

I like Belloc’s style. When I give a go at poetry, I have a tight structure similar to his. I won’t burden you with my poetry. Or, maybe just this one:

When a mouse gets et by a cat
and don’t return to its homes
does the widder come a-lookin’
and scrub the poop from his bones?

When a mouse is digested and lumpish
all femurs and tibias and fur
does the family seek out the turd he’s in
while cursing the evil-fanged cur?

And mourned for its sad, brief existence
grieved for as Mother Machree
lost, and sorely lamented
as a sailor dead and buried at sea?

Or is the mouse, quietly defecated
blamed for its messy demise
and the bones left to moulder with feces
with no tears in the widder’s wide eyes?

I don’t know, I don’t know hisses Tabby
while Tiddles and Morris just laugh
When I eat, I just eat, don’t be churlish
I don’t think on my meal’s sad behalf.

Here’s an additional Belloc treat: The poet himself singing songs he wrote.